Surprise Visits

I had another great weekend with the WWO.

This time, we went kayaking down the Susquehanna.

Such a beautiful peaceful trip. And the first surprise visitor of my weekend was this young eagle. So young, he still had some of his white feathers. He wasn't alone either. There must have been a nest around somewhere, because we had multiple eagle sightings that day. Not to mention the Osprey ignoring us while she decaptitated her freshly caught fish; or the cranes, herons, and kingfishers. As I said - a beautiful and peaceful trip. We stopped on one of the islands for lunch. I wonder who used to live here? This wall wasn't the only evidence that there used to be people living on this tiny little patch in the middle of the river.

We were back to our cars and ready to leave by 3, and I hotfooted it over to Ewenique Yarns in Bel Aire, MD. There was a small group of knitters in the back, laughing over life in general. They were a little worried they were being too graphic and I might be scared away. Silly girls. Didn't take much to set them straight. Needless to say, I found some gorgeous yarn - which, duh, means I bought some gorgeous yarn. But then, I've been on a bit of a yarn feeding frenzy lately. Really need to slow my roll since our vacation is next week.

My next surprise visitor this weekend was one of my oldest friends. She and I went to college together (until I jetted off to Europe for 13 years), and she is also retired military, so she can take advantage of the military airlift transportation - which means she can fly around the world, when space is available on a military flight, for free. So, she's enjoying some free time and I was one of her stops. Very fun. We spent the day in Old Town Alexandria, where, of course, I visited Knit Happens. Yes, I know. I had just been to a yarn store, the day before! What's your point? Yarn Feeding Frenzy. Remember? She spent a few days with us, and made us some Carne Guisada - something hard to find here in DC metro. Quite yummy. I took her to DE where last we spoke, she was trying to get a flight to Europe - I still don't know if she made it or not. Hope so.

So, that's my excuse for being so late this week - was off playing with friends.

Next week, I'll be on vacation, so no new posts til Sep.

Posting pictures

As usual, I procrastinated getting pictures taken of my knitting, which means I didn't have anyone around to take a picture of me wearing it - so it's just hanging up, or laying down, or whatever, but at least you can see I've been busy.

First, here's the Beachcomber Tunic - still in progress. As you can see, once I got it on the blocking boards, the decreases became much more obvious on the front piece, so I'm going to have to rip that back and go at it again. You can't say I'm not getting plenty of practice with my crochet on this piece.

Back looks good though - i think -and after only three tries! The next, most recently completed, is my Silky Liesl, knit up in Art Fibers Kyoto, in an autumn-like colorway (color #27). I really love the lacy hang of this, but wish I'd made the yoke bigger. The funny thing is, the reason I didn't is because someone else on Ravelry lamented that she wished hers was smaller. Oh well. She's probably a tiny little thing.

This quickie, fun little cardigan was made from Be Sweet magic ball-which has several different fibers all knotted together. It was very quick, very easy to make, but I had to keep re-knotting the fibers together. I never bothered to block this, and it really needs it - have worn it several times. Very cute.

Finally, this Noro cardie is one of my favorites - I think it's very elegant, but also VERY warm, so it's going to have to wait for winter.

So, here's some news. I'm trying to get the SigO to do an entry in my blog - one per week type thing. We're thinking of calling it SigO Soundoff, and I'd let him talk about whatever he wants. It's going to take me some convincing though - he thinks it's too much pressure. So, feel free to offer some encouragement!

Been a Long Time Coming

Yeah, yeah, yeah - I know. I've been slacking off. In my defense, since I got back from the Netherlands we've done nothing at all except sit around the house. Day in. Day out. Weekday. Weekend. I was just about to lose my mind. This past weekend came just in the nick of time.

I certainly hadn't planned on sitting around so long. In fact, I had plans to go to the Quilt Odyssey on July 29th. Instead, I sat in traffic for five straight hours - and never made it out of DC. To give this some perspective, both my Mom and I left our respective houses at 1:30 EST. She lives in Texas. I live in Northern Virginia. She drove all the way from her house to Katy, Tx, a total of 158 miles. I drove from mine to Washington D.C. in the same amount of time. A total of 30 miles. When it became apparent that there was no end in sight to this traffic, I turned around and went home. Welcome to N. VA. Expect Delays.

So, that's why no blogging lately. Nothing to inspire me. When I don't get out of my small little environment, I have no inspiration for philosophy, wickedness or thirst quenchers. I do get lots of knitting done and will post pics of all that as soon as I remember to take some.

But we did finally get out of our hole this weekend. We went to the Lancaster, PA area for a nice camp trip at Hibernia County park, and then a nice bike ride in Atglen, PA.

I had assumed there would be showers at the campground, but no joy. They did have a nice deep sink with a tall spigot, so we had ourselves a bit of a birdbath - in the middle of the night when we could strip down to our skivvies without too much fear of being caught.

The campground was gorgeous - tall, tall (over 150') tulip poplar trees. We left our rain cover off the tent to give us more breeze, and when we woke up in the morning, those incredible trees loomed over us. It wasn't too crowded at the campground either - which begs the question: When there are 20 campsites, and only five groups camping, why, oh why do people decide to pitch their tents right next to another tent? Why not spread out a bit? If any reader out there can explain this, I'd really like to know. I'd also like someone to explain to me how we managed to get sandwiched between a site with two young couples, who stayed up singing songs from Dirty Dancing (I can't make this kind of crap up) til 2AM, and a site with a young family, including twin 2-year old girls, who went to bed before 8PM, and were naturally back up by 7AM. In case you ever wonder what the appeal to back country camping is - this is it. Total peace and quiet.

But, of course, this helped get us up and out early, so we could go on our ride before it got too hot. It's really gorgeous country and I should have taken more pictures, but I was just enjoying being there. I did get a shot of this old mill, and this gorgeous house both seen on our bike ride.

Then on our way home, I got some pictures of the Amish, driving home from Sunday services, and a few pictures of the country side. They're blurry because I was trying to take them from a moving car.

So, that was the weekend. Sanity restored.